Unlike most Australian capitals, Adelaide was founded on lofty social ideals rather than as a convict settlement. But from its earliest days, the nation’s first planned city developed thanks to the down-to-earth drive of its private property sector.

The South Australian capital, lord mayor Jane Lomax-Smith tells The Urban Developer’s inaugural symposium in Adelaide from a room overlooking the city’s planned parklands, “was founded on the basis of property speculation”.

“It was land speculation from the beginning because although the underpinning philosophy was it was a utopia of religious and political freedom, the only way to make it happen was to sell lots of land,” she says.